


I Can See Now Why You Chose Embroidery

by rostropovich



Category: Hornblower (TV), Hornblower - C. S. Forester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-03-09 06:17:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13475460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rostropovich/pseuds/rostropovich
Summary: In which Edrington learns how to embroider.





	I Can See Now Why You Chose Embroidery

**Author's Note:**

> Here is a visual reference for young edrington ( https://lordedrington.tumblr.com/image/170045444905 )  
> Inspired by this photograph ( http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/anteros_lmc/24047468/596417/596417_600.jpg )

Bram Edrington despaired. The bleary grey Mordington landscape had relented as the sun reached its highest point in the sky, revealing a vivid blue sky and the virgin grasses beginning to rise above the browning snow. The cypresses and willows leaned in the warm breeze, and somewhere, a lark chirped. Winter was just starting to relent, and the first hint of the coming spring was enough to move one to tears. He could just imagine rolling his sleeves up to his elbows and feeling the sunlight glaze over his pale flesh, bathing him in a lethargic warmth, cozy enough to summon gooseflesh from his frozen skin. The smell of fresh grasses and clean water would wreath his soul, and Persephone herself would lull him to sleep beneath the hawthorn tree beside the brooks.

His head rolled away from the window; he could not bear to look. The boy’s head spun and throbbed, and his throat burned with inflammation. A porcelain carafe rested atop his bedside table. Beside it was an empty cup and a small, dark bottle with a cracked cork at the top. A spoon with the Edrington crest carved in it sat on a grey washcloth.

He sighed laboriously, focusing on the woman sitting in the corner of his bedchambers. A white cap covered her wild red locks, and her pudgy fingers worked deftly on the spool of thread that she spun. Her back was hunched over her work, and her little feet rhythmically worked at the treadle of her spinning wheel. The wheel clicked and whirred as it spun round. “You slept for a while,” said the woman. She had known the Edrington children for all their years, and then some. She was known simply to them as Miss Molly, and the children knew little else about her, besides the sting of her hand on their bare bottoms, her talent in the kitchens, and her peculiar level of education.

“Did I?” Bram mumbled, disinterested. The wheel slowed to a stop and he was bitterly roused from his trance. Miss Molly set her work down in the basket on the floor and stood, going to Edrington’s bedside. She pressed the back of her hand to his forehead and he relished in the coolness of her fingers.

“Aye, you did. Miss Lucy and Mister Benjamin are outside,” the woman measured out a heaping spoonful of medicine from the bottle. Bram protested with a sneer. When he saw the size of his dosage, he let out a great whine. His stomach crawled at the sight of it, and his dark brows furrowed. The medicine looked like molasses and, as soon as it was poured out of the bottle, wafted throughout the room, filling the air with a spicy, pungent reek.

“That’s too much!” he cried. “Must I take all of it?”

“My duty to your lord-father is to keep you safe and healthy, young master, not to keep you comfortable,” Molly gave a sardonic smile and Bram wondered if she delighted in the discomfort of children. “Open up now.”

He panicked. “Wait! can I not wash it down with a cup of water?”

At that, the maid let out a harsh bark of laughter. “I think not, Master Edrington! You want to get better, do you not?”

“Well - ” he began, and at that moment, the maid jammed the spoon into his open mouth. Bram sputtered, at first with surprise, then with discomfort. The taste was akin to mothballs and old fish and a big mouthful of grass and pepper. It was viscous and coated his mouth and throat long after he had swallowed it. Bram glared and sunk down into his bed.

“Good lad,” she gave him a kiss on the forehead and grumpily batted her away. He laid flat, hoping to that the opium in the medicine would act quickly, lulling him to sleep for another few hours until either the weather grew nasty again or he began to feel better (both outcomes would have improved his mood). However, the he felt the medicine shift uncomfortably in his stomach and his face flushed, his skin grew clammy, and the thought of gagging became prevalent in his mind. Bram sat up once again. “Would you like me to read to you?” the woman asked, taking note of his disturbance.

“I would like to go outdoors now.”

“Come, come,” she said, not looking up from her spinning wheel. “Don’t be daft.” He expected as much, but found no harm but disappointment in asking. His head lolled to the left again and his head throbbed in pain. A large, puffy cloud sailed across the blue expanse and the grass peeking out from the snow shimmered silver in the sunlight. The last month had been plagued with sleet and long nights, the sun hidden behind a dark shroud of dreary clouds shading the moors and valleys blanketed with snow. Days like this were rare in Mordington, and even rarer in the bland winters. And here he was, wasting the daylight hours away tucked stagnant in bed. “I have something for you to do.”

Bram perked up, curious. He watched the maid slow the wheel and bend down to the basket, taking two wooden rings and a large rectangle of white fabric. She sat at his bedside once again and he sat up to study what she had. Their shoulders brushed together endearingly. “Can you sew?”

“No.”

“It’s simple.” She unscrewed the top of the wooden rings, which were about six inches in diameter, and placed the fabric between them, drawing it tight. Molly peeled apart a length of yellow thread she had just spun and effortlessly threaded it through the wide eye of a little silver needle. Bram’s eyes were narrowed slits, scrutinising her work. She tied the end of the thread and turned the fabric around. Molly stuck the needle through the back and pulled it up the other side, turning it about face. “Do you see the line?”

Bram stared at the cotton fabric until he spied the fine graphite line curving up and across the eggshell expanse. “I do.”

“All you need to do is sew along it. Just stick the needle through like that, pointing up, and then go back so you fill in the line.” She handed the piece to Edrington who began quickly. The needle felt strange and thin in his hands. Up, back, up, back, he repeated. “Carefully, now,” Molly warned. “The stitches must be evenly spaced and evenly sized. Yes, like that.” Edrington slowed and took great interest in following the line drawn out for him. Molly stood and went back to her wheel. “If you grow tired, Master Edrington, just set it aside and lay down and you can finish it later if you so please.”

“Yes,” he mumbled, drawing the thread back and tightening the stitch before running it through the fabric once more. “I am very familiar with the concept of going to sleep.” The symptoms of his maladies were shrouded by the shadow of the fabric, and the new, strange enjoyment he found in filling in lines on cotton. The pop of the needle slipping in and out of the taut material was satisfying to his ears, as was the drag of the thread being pulled through the fabric. Bram sat there for a long while, carefully embroidering the fabric with the soft yellow thread. 

Sunny days would come and go, permeated by the depressing slap of rain against the shutters, but, as he continued the stitches, he saw the some suns would stay out forever.


End file.
